


Not Too Shabby

by EmeraldOasis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ashara Lives, Hoster Tully is still a gigantic asswagon, Mention of Past Ned/Ashara, Multi, Petyr Baelish can go fuck himself, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Rhaella Targaryen Lives, Rhaenys Targaryen Lives, So the seven above are the quasi-main focus, The gang's all here but like, The way this is written it's more of mentions than it is true development, Trigger Warning for Mentions of Forced Canon Abortion Miscarriage and Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 14:07:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldOasis/pseuds/EmeraldOasis
Summary: By the matter of her father's arguing (and no small amount of fury for Brandon's reckless actions), Lysa becomes the wife of Eddard Stark, while Catelyn becomes Lady Arryn.Perhaps the kingdoms are better for it.





	Not Too Shabby

Lysa does not know if it is she or her sister who is the lucky one.

 

 

Jon Arryn is an old man. Eddard Stark is younger than his brother, that horrid wild wolf Brandon, but he acts like he is the sheep in the room full of wolves. The nobles of the Riverlands all act in the reverse - Brandon was a wild one so it stands that Eddard could be as well.

 

(Petyr continues to write to her of his sweet nothings, how he will save her and her babe with him. He does not know yet. He does not care to ask for her health, only for her to run off with him like Lyanna did or didn't willingly with Rhaegar. Petyr also dances around certain things like the bloody war roaring around their heads and asks funny questions about Eddard's reaction to the news of his sister's kidnapping, his father and brother's deaths.

 

Lysa is not sure what to make of that. She has an empty belly and an empty heart. Petyr will not come for her.

 

 

He will not.)

 

 

The new Lord Stark is kind, if shy. Lord Arryn is courteous to Catelyn - she watches as her sister giggles at a silly jape he whispers in her ear at the wedding feast. Their father demanded they both be wed if the Riverlands are to be thrust into rebellion. Lysa thinks Cat is a fine enough prize for the cost of war.

 

Hoster Tully truly wants his shameful daughter gone. Lysa was supposed to be a boy child. Her lord father had never let her forget it, when she was a child. Wrongfully, he assumed now that she had forgotten the nasty glares she endured, the significantly smaller meals she received compared to Catelyn and Edmure, the curses he had shouted at her when she was brave, once.

 

Her moonsblood did not come for a few moons after that tea was slipped to her. Maybe she'd bled all the parts for babes out with her child. In a way, that pleased her. In another - she was terrified. What if she could not grant a single child to Lord Eddard?

 

"When- When's the bedding, Stark?" A drunken voice called out. Soon she and her sister are surrounded by loud hulking men to be stripped. Catelyn of course is laughing gaily - her dress top is not the first to be ripped. They are deposited outside of the rooms they are to be bedded in - her and Jon's across the hall and down a few meters from Lysa and Lord Eddard's door. The warden of the east staggers into his room with his arm wrapped around Catelyn's waist, the smell of wine faint around the two. Eddard is nowhere to be seen.

 

She nearly joins her departed mother and babe brother with a screech from a poke at her backside. Her new husband's face is indeed as sheepish as a Stark could be - maybe the wine has affected him too, like Jon and Cat. "M-My lady. I did not mean to scare you- " Laughter bubbles up from his belly. It sounds like a rare thing to be treasured.

 

Rough, calloused hands are led in the room. The wooden door closes softly and with a lock, they are alone.

 

 

They are alone. Oh Maiden, Mother, and Crone, Lysa is alone with a man all over again.

 

 

Visions flash in her eyes. Eddard leads her slowly to the four-poster bed. Petyr's face beneath her as she rides him. Bloody sheets, bloody parts - without these things Lord Stark will know she is not a virgin. No maidenhead as proof. _Tea, tea, tea swirling, drowning her lost child, an impossibly tiny hand grasping for aid but she cannot reach in time._

 

"I have no idea what I am doing, my lady." The slight air of drunkenness about him is gone to be replaced with a healthy bit of fear. "P-Please...Show me if I am doing wrong."

 

The honesty is refreshing. They bed and it is...pleasant. She peaked the second time she slept with Petyr, but now that she has peaked once with Lord Stark, she wonders if it was because of Petyr or what he was doing. The Northman even used his tongue between her legs and that-

 

 

It was certainly something. Lysa feels she would like to do that in the future again, so long as her husband will agree. This is most unusual. Their septa had always spoke of duty to bear children and never to take pleasure in the marriage bed. ' _That is the way of slatterns and the Dornish or the Lyseni, never proper highborn ladies_ ,' Septa Glorifell ranted. The old hag drooled a bit at all times and was a cruel mistress when anything short of perfection was before her like needlework. More often than not, Lysa had been on the receiving end of her willow-rod's rapping. Hoster allowed it for weeding out undesirable traits in his children.

 

Not mine, she thought absentmindedly, stroking her still-warm belly in the light of the moon. Eddard - Ned, he begged her to call him - snored after Lysa assured him he had been a good match in bed. In truth, she had wanted to ride him again; have him mount her like a wolf bitch. Her body burned in shame at her desires. Septa Glorifell's teachings hounded her thoughts. **_Slut! Whore! Liar! Stranger take you girl! The rod for you, insolent child!_**

 

 

She prayed.

 

 

A moonturn later, she knew the gods had abandoned her. Her courses were the norm at least - it was some hope that her father had not damaged her when he slipped her the moontea. All around her, as Cat's courses continued to elude her with the passing months, Lysa could not help but feel all of Riverrun's eyes on her.

 

 

The Battle of the Bells was the worst. Ned had written as often as he could, but she had been left shaking when his blood-stained letter after that horror arrived. Cat wailed as Lysa read aloud of Denys Arryn's bloody demise. Edmure looked sad enough when she paused to calm her sister down for the sake of her child, but she had just not reacted fast enough when their brother asked for more details of the carnage, only to receive a hard slap from Catelyn for his impudence.

 

 

_Good. He's been allowed to do as he pleased for longer than any child should be._

 

 

Robert Arryn arrived in a particularly nasty squall of weather. Rain and harsh winds threatened to shatter the glass windows of the castle, but Lysa felt that if she did not hold her sister's hand through her pains or fetch water that she was in a sense abandoning this new child. He was a healthy, robust lad, with lungs that could have broken the windows instead of the wind. "A fine heir for Lord Arryn Cat, well done!" Hoster crowed. Blessedly, Lysa was ignored for a full sennight. She would tidy in small ways, ways that the average riverlander maid would not think of - sharp corners and fragile objects for one - and explained her reasoning to Cat when noticed.

 

 

To her eternal delight, Catelyn hugged her sister for having such wonderful foresight when Robert would begin to toddle around.

 

 

Just like that, the war was over. Jon Arryn sent for Catelyn to join him at King's Landing, and had requested that Lysa come along, 'to greet her husband upon his return from Dorne, searching for the Lady Lyanna.' The night prior to their departure, Lysa prayed in the godswood. The Seven did not care for her - they would have saved her child with Petyr, or blessed Ned's seed to quicken sooner - so she sought out his blasphemous Old Gods.

 

 

_Let my husband find his sister. Let all be well. Let the realm heal, if it pleases you._

 

 

It was just so that they would answer her prayers. Just...Not the way she intended.

 

 

Lyanna had to be burned, for she had perished of a fever in the Red Mountains. Prince Rhaegar had kept the lady - a girl, really - a virtual prisoner. Ned reported to the new king, Robert Baratheon, that Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard had escaped, but Sers Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent were dead. Willam Dustin and Howland Reed confirmed the story, and Robert wailed for his lost bride-to-be.

 

The wedding to Cersei Lannister was a ghastly affair. The lioness was stunned at the turn of events, but by the time the two greeted the smallfolk after the ceremony, Lysa knew that glint in her green eyes. Her own father had it when he'd bargained her and Cat's cunts for a war. One glance at her sister said she had seen the same. At least Jon looked remorseful that he'd even mentioned such a match to Robert.

 

 

_Ned, however..._

 

 

Things were strained.

 

 

He'd come back with a bastard, a boy, also named Jon, for his foster father. Lysa knew when her father would hear of this, he would riot, were he still capable of raising that many men. War was costly, and personal costs were no stranger to her. All whispered of the way Ned looked at that wretched tourney when his brother asked Lady Ashara Dayne to dance with him. He'd been lost in those violet haunting orbs of hers like many a man, and while the Dornishwoman's reputation was widely known as a loose woman, Lysa and Cat agreed that her face softened when he spoke to her.

 

She wanted to be angry. Cat certainly was, in the way only someone who sought to be offended by another's mistake could be. Sweet babe Jon's existance did not offend her -

 

Had they lived, her own child would have been a bastard. Seeing court now only drove the point home. Petyr would have never married her. He'd whispered Cat's name when she fucked him, both half-drunk but him moreso, and he'd hissed something similar when she fucked him the second time. He'd clearly realized what he was trying to say and strangled the sound, but Lysa ignored it then. Now...

 

 

She met Ned's eyes. He still smiled slightly at her in a bashful way. Looking down, she hadn't realized that her fingers were wound around his, gently.

 

 

He had never gotten a bastard, she realized with horror. Robert danced with Cersei a few times, and more than one man was calling for the bedding. Jon and Ned remained seated. Cat excused herself to tend to little Robb, she and Jon called him.

 

 

In this moment, lights glittering and goblets clinking against plates and another's cup, she knew what her husband had done.

 

 

Their journey North did not come soon enough. The words she wanted to spit out could not be spoken there, in the capital, where Princess Elia and babe Prince Aegon had died, where Princess Rhaenys had been imprisoned before someone spirited her away to gods knew where. Robert ordered the city turned upside down, and for his brother Stannis to attack Dragonstone where the queen Rhaella still yet remained, but Ned spoke of how if Ser Arthur was still alive, he likely would see the remains of the royal family safe to Essos.

 

By the time they could finally sleep in the lord's chambers in Winterfell, word had been sent that the Queen was safe beyond the reach of King Robert, and that Ser Arthur indeed had taken the princess to safety with her grandmother. Gods only knew where they all were - queen, prince (or king-claimant, now), two princesses, one kingsguard, and one elderly master-at-arms with a handful of loyal servants - but Lysa secretly wished them well. Robert was a well-known drunk, and a womanizer.

 

 

Not her Ned though. That, that was a lie. A very flimsy fabrication, if she were honest. She said that to his face, in his solar, upon her request to meet there. He looked like she slapped him in the face.

 

 

"Jon is a dragon. An ice dragon, to be specific. Ned, he might all but look like you as a babe, but that boy is our best chance at a king." Ned paced the room. She would have laughed, for the solar was not nearly as long as it should have to facilitate such maneuvers.

 

 

He worked his jaw. "The boy is mine, Lysa-"

 

 

"Ned."

 

 

He paused but did not face her.

 

 

"He is of Rhaegar's seed. I know not if he actually wed your sister, but-"

 

 

"Legal and true. A binding marriage. An agreement from Elia to be sister-queens to Rhaegar." Ned interrupted with a whisper. She felt numb from shock. Sister-queens? Rhaegar meant to restore the Targaryen family, not tear the realm asunder! Gods, how could they have all been so stupid? Why had they not sent word of their plans?

 

 

_Oh._

 

 

_Oh **no**._

 

 

"Petyr." His name was no longer a holy sacrament on her breath, but a vile hiss. Ned looked at his wife with alarm. "What about him? Brandon beat the boy bloody, did he not? What does he have to do with Lyanna?"

 

This was supposed to be all about her demanding rights for Jon, to make him heir if she continued to not get with child. If she could not, and a rebellion could not happen, then he would at least hold the North, at the least a place like Moat Cailin if she were to bear a son. Anything better than being scoffed at his whole life for something he was not. This was not supposed to be about her link, however small, in the war.

 

 

Lysa breathed deeply.

 

 

"I laid with Petyr Baelish twice, my lord. The first, he called me by Catelyn's name. Both of us were drunk, but him moreso. Still, I believed he could love me, as he would continue to kiss me or touch me as it pleased him. The second time, I got with child. My...father, slipped me moontea, but he put something else in it to make sure I would..." Here, her voice faltered. To her shock, Ned walked to her and knelt before her, placing his hands atop her own. With a nod from him, she continued.

 

"He never forgave Brandon for humiliating him as he did." Ned bowed his head in shame, but Lysa could not stop to tell him off for trying to repent for his brother's acts. "I believed that he would come back, wed me, for our child. I spoke up, and was cast down, so to speak. I see revenge as...perhaps, having happiness with you, here, in spite of my father, or my sister as wife to the Hand of the King, my lord. Petyr..." Lysa swallowed. "Petyr is a vengeful creature with a long memory. He asked in letters to me - I kept them, they are in my wooden chest in our room - specifically about your reactions to your family's deaths. About Brandon's face when he was told of Lyanna's kidnapping, but Brandon only passed through Riverrun on his way towards the capital. I doubt even Cat saw him before he died. I cannot help but think - why would Petyr need to know that detail about anyone? Why would he ask me those questions when I needed him?"

 

She was left gasping for breath, but she did not know when she started crying. Ned trembled with anger, but any thought of it being directed at her was swept aside along with her skirts. He had indeed fucked her like a wolf bitch, right there on his father's and grandfather's and great-greatgrandfather's and so-on's desk, but when she tipped over in a dizzying white blur, she had the oddest feeling that she was not the only Stark wife to have been rutted with on that desk. Weary, he explained that it just, "Felt like the thing to do," at the time. Lysa had a good long laugh at the absurdity of that, but then Ned joined in, and then they'd fucked a fair bit more before retiring to their bedchamber. In the days that followed their respective confessions, Ned had ensured she was present as he heard of complaints or trade issues with his lords or smallfolk. She was not politically-minded, but she knew a bad deal when she saw one, so she made herself useful, she thought.

 

 

It gladdened her some that Ned and she continued to rut about all over the castle, sometimes mere moments between finishing, washing, and racing off to handle a dispute between pig farmers.

 

 

With some reprieve came grief once more, and within a year she is pushing out a corpse. Ned found her in the nursery, clinging to little Jon like a lifeline. He sent off for the King's approval and Jon was Jon Stark, not Snow, by the year's end.

 

 

Jon called her mama out of the blue not long after, and to her surprise, she felt a little hole in her chest bubble and fill up. She would sing songs with him and Old Nan, since Wylla had to eventually leave for Dragonstone to attend to Lady Ashara Baratheon as she expected her first child with Stannis. Before she left, Wylla wrote down all she knew of dragon stories and such. Wylla had known always of Jon's - Jaehaerys, she had mentioned - heritage, and swore that Ashara and Stannis knew as well. Might have explained why Stannis was unusually clumsy with his attack on Dragonstone, though that could have been the massive storm shredding boats and sinking armor.

 

In the dark of the night, just before she laid him down to sleep, she would sing softly of Daenys the Dreamer, of the Prince of Dragonflies and his sweet Jenny of Oldstones, of the Dragonknight's glory. He would learn the dark side of the Targaryen madness - let his childhood be filled with the better parts, and of Northern tales of grumpkins and giants. Ned watches from the doorway, always. Lysa acts that she does not hear his near-silent weeping on the days she whispers of his brave mother, assurances that he is of Lyanna but he is also hers, dammit.

 

 

The first children she successfully carries to birth are born, ironically, while Ned is off to war. Hearing rumor of the dowager queen in hiding in Essos, the Iron Islands declare for the Targaryens in 287 A.C., proclaiming that Robert is a false king and his son is a false prince. (Later, she would think back to the moment the realm thought the Ironborn mad, and she will laugh 'til her sides hurt.) The Greyjoy Rebellion ends after two years of conflict, and with Asha and Theon Greyjoy taken as hostages, the rest of their family and noble houses crushed. Asha is sent to Lannisport to be moulded into the Andal ideal of a sea-fairing highborn lady, Theon is sent to Stannis Baratheon for much the same.

 

 

Letters notified her husband of her progress, her fears, her hopes. Ned loved her so, he refused to command a specific name for a boy or girl. 'Name them, and I will love them no less. Name a boy Bile and a girl Cow-Pie - I will gladly name them mine and see them with joy.' Jocelyn and Torrhen are not quite Bile-and-Cow-Pie, but Ned weeps at the sight of Lysa, Benjen, Jon, and the babes in his wife's and Old Nan's arms when he returns to Winterfell. Benjen eventually returns back to his rebuilding of Moat Cailin and to his wife, Myra Flint, and their babe daughter Arya.

 

 

She prays Arya will like her children for cousins.

 

 

Ned's chest swells with pride as Old Nan brags about how brave Jon was, five and he held onto his mother's hand all the way until his siblings came out of her. Naturally, he did not see anything untoward, but he nodded fiercely at Lysa's request for him to always protect his younger twin siblings. Restoration or not, she does respect the motto of House Tully for a reason, and she will not have her nephew-son be a stranger to her children.

 

More blood follows over the years, but the sadness between her and Ned inches closed with each loss. He honors her by burying their lost children in the crypts. Tears fall as his suggestion to inscribe names for the babes. Sansa, Berene, Brandon, Lyenne, Robbard, Cregan, and Alys. With a proper grave, it feels like the ghosts of Petyr's hands, repulsive since that day in the solar, since her marriage, are gone. No longer does she wake in terror during the night of absolute silence from the nursery - Jon snores like a bear, and she thinks Torrhen emulates his brother.

 

 

(She's wrong - Jon's snore softens, but it is Jocelyn who could bring down the castle around their ears with her loud rumbles. Torrhen is puny by comparison. Rickon doesn't snore at all, and for that, Lysa is grateful.)

 

 

Rickon is a shock, but a welcome one. The twins are five now, and Jon is ten. This time, he does not have to stand guard over his mother - Ned stayed North mostly after the Greyjoy Rebellion. The pains are not as rough this time, but the labor is long. Rickon is a quiet, pensive lad at first, but when he reaches his terrible twos -

 

 

**_Gods preserve them._ **

 

 

Jon wrangles the boy. "He's like Brandon come again, if Brandon was more wild." At Lysa's wry glance, Ned chuckled. "Shocking, I know, my love. Pray he rides as well as he, or wagons might be difficult for us to ride in for travel."

 

Rickon rides. All her children do - Jon is the best, his mother was as skilled as her brother, though Brandon was supposedly wroth to admit it. He is five, Jon is close to a man grown at five and ten, and the twins are stuck smack dab in the middle. With age comes a certain sense of...oddness. Lysa thinks that grumpkins and snarks are not so distant from their present after all.

 

Jocelyn can sense things before they happen sometimes, and Lysa tried not to scream when she saw her daughter's Tully blue eyes go milky-white. Rickon does the same with his direwolf pup Shaggydog, until Old Nan says a few words to him about needing to not spend nearly as much time in Shaggy as he had. Torrhen wanders in the crypts to pay his respects to his lost siblings and older family members. It is he who blurts out the question in private to Lysa one morning:

 

"Jon's our cousin, not our brother by blood, isn't he?"

 

Redheaded he might be, but she cannot deny those blasted innocent Stark grey eyes. One private meeting in Ned's solar later, and Jon was off to board a boat to Braavos, complete with a fine sword, two fossilized dragon eggs from Good Queen Alysanne's visit to the North, and a small albino direwolf pup named Ghost. All of that thanks to a speedy letter to Ashara Baratheon. 'Arthur will help you. Thank you, for doing the right thing, Eddard, Lysa. Gods carry him through.'

 

Catelyn would have flown off the handle at the lack of proper terms for her husband and herself, but Cat's up to her ears juggling her falcon-fish brood of Robb, Minisa, Rowland, and Erina, and court niceties be damned - Ashara lost a babe by Ned. Lysa wrote to her after discovering that fact, and the two continued to correspond with eachother. The Dornishwoman truly did care for Ned, and felt a kinship with Lysa, but she made certain that both knew she loved Stannis and their children, Shireen, Rhaelle, and Orys. With Ashara's presence, however, the withdrawn Baratheon brother had secretly declared for the dragons - Robert had gravely insulted him by leaving Storm's End to Renly Baratheon and not he, instead of granting Dragonstone for the youngest brother. 'A drunken fat fool is no true king, no matter what Jon Arryn says,' Stannis wrote in a small letter of his own tucked away in one of Ash's.

 

 

Stannis could not fully back a man who he and Jon Arryn suspected was completely cuckolded either, and the man who firmly believed in murdering women and children.

 

 

(Rhaenys became a tiny balm to Stannis' soul for the short time she had been a captive in the Red Keep. He would never admit it publicly, but he had been overjoyed with his then-new wife that his goodbrother had made off with the princess. Maester Cressen supposedly kept semi-frequent correspondence with Rhaella or her husband Bonifer Hasty.)

 

 

A new plot was to unfold, a new king be it relatively aloof but logical Viserys or brave and true Jon, and the restoration of a dynasty that was far better than their current lot on the Iron Throne -

 

 

Then Jon Arryn died, Torrhen ran off with the Reed siblings and his direwolf Snowdrift, their plot was exposed and suddenly the War of the Four Kings is off to a fantastic start. Euron Greyjoy, Renly Baratheon, and Jaehaerys Targaeryn all declare for the Iron Throne following the revelation that Joffrey Baratheon is truly a Waters - the product of incest between twins Jaime and Cersei. Joffery of course claims he is the king now, but none believe him. Not when Cersei's hand is ever-present.

 

Catelyn sides with the North and the Stormlands. Ned almost giggles when Lysa points out that makes twice that such a powerful alliance has been struck between the Vale, North, and the Stormlands, but now they are joined by Dorne as well. Prince Doran knew Ashara though not as well as Oberyn or Elia did, but he agrees to Stannis' proposal to declare for Jaehaerys.

 

Rhaenys sweetens the deal. They said Oberyn nearly fell dead from the shock of a vision of his long-dead sister before him, but for his paramour Ellaria to shout of Rhaenys' resemblance to both her mother and paternal grandmother. The lone thick shock of her dragonstreak in her brown hair helped her case, and thus all of Dorne roars for her half-brother Jae.

 

Ned leaves to fight with his men in the Riverlands and the Westerlands. "Benjen will hold the Moat, you will be reagent for Rickon. I will return, my love, my lovely Lysa."

 

 

She realizes too late that he had chained the massive direwolf mother to all of the Stark's pups, Winter, in the kennels. Winter howls for her bonded one.

 

 

Winter is how she knows Ned is dead. The letter arrived a moonturn later.

 

 

There is not another child as a memory of the man who loved her for close to seven and ten years. Rickon wails and begs in the godswood for his father back. Shaggydog paces around his young charge, restless. Jocelyn reads and reads and reads with Maester Luwin's assistance for all knowledge that she may grasp to help her brother rule Winterfell. Lysa prays for her children's safety and for Torrhen to return.

 

Meera Reed, the babe by her son in her belly, and Snowdrift return three years later, during the Bolton occupation. Rickon was as fine of a liege as one could be in a child, and Jocelyn continued to push off betrothal requests. "Domeric Bolton is as dangerous as his father, mother - he might be good-looking, but I know a wicked cruelty when I see it," She had said. Strange, how Lysa was to be reagent, but her daughter ruled more than either she or Rickon.

 

If Ned were still alive, she would have asked him to perhaps follow in House Mormont's or Dorne's footsteps for inheritance.

 

Poor Meera, however, is witness to a sight that none had seen before in all of the North.

 

The Bastard of Bolton had enough of Rickon's protests that he would not rule over the North. A wicked cutting knife was held at her youngest's throat. Shaggydog had been intentionally chained in the kennels for this -

 

 

But not Winter. They foolishly thought all the other direwolves were gone or dead, like Snowdrift.

 

 

The hall erupted into shouting when Meera walked in, belly full of child, and her son's wolf firmly placed in front of her. "I carry Torrhen Stark's child. Torrhen has joined with the Children of the Forest, and Bloodraven. My brother Jojen is gone, but House Reed stands with our liege!" The young woman cried out. All houses - Mormont, Karstark, Manderly, and the rest - spun back to Ramsay holding their current liege hostage.

 

He threw her son to the floor. His breath was hot and filthy on her neck, hissing, "You stole this from me, so let me steal you from them, fish-cunt!"

 

"Winter is coming!" Lysa screamed.

 

 

And so she did.

 

 

Snowdrift and Winter's muzzles dripped heavily with blood from both Ramsay and his loyal men. Shaggydog wandered in shortly looking the same from those nasty bitches of the bastard. True to form, Jocelyn's Rose stole all the attention with her visceral rending of Roose Bolton's neck.

 

 

By the time the North was somewhat in less shambles, the war in the South was nearly over. The North continued to focus on fighting the threat of the Others, and with Jae wedding his aunt Daenerys, Viserys to Princess Arianne Martell, and Rhaenys to Lord Willas Tyrell, the South summarily slaughtered those yet still loyal to Cersei's mad ravings. Her brothers had abandoned her, her father dead, and all but Myrcella dead thanks to her plotting. Ashara wrote that Stannis and Davos Seaworth had seen Euron throw her into the sea as he was skewered by Jaime Lannister's blade.

 

An aside by Maege Mormont tells of how Petyr was so pathetic that he begged for his life in soiled pants before Rhaella. Her dragon Mercy did not life up to her namesake as the beast swallowed him whole with a single gulp.

 

(She knew she liked House Mormont for a reason!)

 

Jaehaerys and his riders all arrived to fight directly on the field. Of the four, only Viserys had perished astride his hulking green dragon Jadefire. Rhaenys and her Balerion ("I simply could not resist, Lady Stark - May I call you Aunt, by the by?") narrowly avoided ice spears through her dragon's wings, while Daenerys stuck to urging Rhaegon to scorch the field of wights on the ground, given her delicate state. At the very least, when they returned home Arianne would not be lonely with just her son Maron for comfort.

 

 

They had ventured South for the true coronation of Jon, and the burial of Viserys. Prince Haedron was of an age as Rickon, give or take a year, and she could not help but smile at how fast they took to each other. Meera reported a healthy girl, Alysanne, in honor of the renewed oaths between House Targaryen and House Stark, and with the North. Dowager Queen Rhaella stood next to Lysa - a place of honor she did not expect.

 

 

"You raised our Jaehaerys. You are as much of a mother to him as Lyanna was, as Elia wanted to be. I doubt he would have been as successful as he is now without a mother's love, Lady Stark. Such devotion makes you family to us all." Deep violet eyes brimmed with tears she no doubt matched when Jae knelt with Dany by his side for the septon to crown. Maester Marwyn was to be the new scholar for the Iron Throne. No doubt he would want to write detailed examinations of Jae's dragons Icewind and Ember, or Haedron's Titan, but somehow she doubted Ser Bonifer would allow that.

 

Rickon and she returned back to their home after the arrival of twins Lysanna and Eddor. Jon wept when she explained of Torrhen's passing in grander detail during their time in the Landing, and before they left, a moonturn after his children's birth, he spoke openly and honestly to the woman he loved as a mother for all his life.

 

 

"Nobody asked you to care for me. You saw the truth Father - Uncle, but he will always be my father - tried to hide. Lady Ashara speaks of how honest you were with her, bonding over things other ladies would be scandalized about. You let me learn how to fight, to teach and protect my siblings of my blood or slightly-distant blood," His poor jape was met with a loud groan by Haedron. "You loved me. You loved me, even when I lived and all your babes did not. You loved me when you finally had children of your own-"

 

 

' _You were always mine, Jon,_ ' She starts to spit out, but he embraces her in such a way that she is breathless.

 

 

"I love you, Mother. I know you to be my aunt, but until the day I die, you are my mother and none else. I love Lyanna too, but she is a painting I shall greet personally when I die. You...You are real. Paintings and pictures cannot sing of dragons and grumpkins." Jae laughs with her through the tears. Dragons and a new beginning of a direwolf litter below the Neck remain in King's Landing. Icewind soars with them until they reach Moat Cailin before vanishing back to his home far beyond the sunset horizon. Ghost and his jet-black mate Sorcha stand guard over her second and third grandchild, more to surely follow.

 

  
Rickon weds Lyanna Mormont in a thunderous feast to be spoken of for the ages to come. Jocelyn never weds, but does find happiness with her handmaiden Arilla Karstark. Grumpy that they are, the Karstarks eventually conciede that will be as good as a formal betrothal as they will get out of her. The Smalljon is made drunk and weds them in the godswood. Not a peep is made in the North against her daughter, and for that, Lysa is thankful. Meera's Alysanne is a proper Stark in title and name, and with Meera's wedding of one of Benjen's boys, Artos Stark, she is allowed to keep Greywater Watch with Benjen's permission that Meera herself not take her husband's name. Their children, since Artos was a fifth son, all keep Meera's name, a fact he is happy about. Alysanne fosters with Lyanna Mormont-Stark, in public for the honor of serving her liege-aunt, in practice so she can alternatively spoil her and train her personally. Lysa feels she spoils all her children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews, so Lyanna can afford to whack Alysanne with a staff a few times in the training yard.

 

Jon - Jae, whatever he feels like - and Dany are quite fruitful. By 311 A.C., there is Lysanna and Eddor, Aemon, Daeron, Shaera, Rhaella (after she finally died, confident at last in her children and grandchildren's safety), and another damn Viserys-but-not, named Viserion. No sibling-marriages, and with Rhaenys' little dragon clutch of Elia, Margaery (for Willas' lost sister), and Aegon, Lysa is confident that at least one branch will marry another, including Maron. Arianne never wed again, but she continued to keep many lovers in the same fashion as her uncle Oberyn. Those houses with Old Valyrian heritage already creep into the Landing to bind their children to the royals, and nobles or wealthy merchants as far as Lys or Tyrosh send favors for the same.

 

 

With Dany having studied politics and court intrigue under Rhaella's watchful guidance, Lysa doesn't think that poor matches will be allowed, to say the least.

 

 

Stannis burned to death beyond the Wall. He had actually died just after Viserys, but with a mortal wound and a fear of becoming a Wight, Jon set him and countless other dying wounded aflame at their collective request. Ashara perished from fever in 308 A.C., seeing Shireen wed Robert Arryn in a beautiful ceremony and Rhaelle to wed a nobleman from Volantis. For their allegiance to the crown and with Shireen leaving for the Vale, Rhaelle and her husband were granted positions of castellan and caretakers of Dragonstone in honor of their part of House Baratheon. Orys wed a Swann girl who spat out a single son, so unhappy was she to be his bride. Scandal erupted across the Seven Kingdoms when she made for Pentos to be with her lover. His son clearly of Baratheon blood, Orys did not see fit to send his men to collect her.

 

Renly's bones were finally found and interred at Storm's End in 311 A.C. They likely were not even his, but the gesture meant a fair bit from House Lannister as an unneeded apology for Cersei's blowing up of the Great Sept of Baelor, with Renly and his lover Loras Tyrell, Margaery, and Mace Tyrell along with countless other innocents and the core of the Faith Militant. Lysa did not care for the specifics of what went on in the South, but she did enjoy attending Jaime's wedding to Brienne of Tarth. Tyrion made sure to keep her mind off of Ned or Torrhen then, as fresh as they were off of winning the War for the Four Kings and the War for the Dawn. She prayed he did well with his found-again bride Tysha, and their son Jomyn.

 

Far, far too soon, she felt the effects of her age. She turned down offers to spend time in the capital, time in Casterly Rock as a welcomed guest of Tyrion, or Tarth for Jaime and Brienne. Catelyn who rarely left the Vale would visit but eventually she, too, saw her sister less and less. Robb died without issue from his wife, Jeyne Westerling, and Minisa married Harrold Hardyng to rein the philanderer in - five babes in as many years, Cat wrote, and no signs of stopping for him to find another skirt to lift. Erina wed a bastard of Robert Baratheon's named Edric Storm, as he was raised personally by Stannis and Ashara. Cat had been beside herself, but she'd gotten over it well enough. Rowland continued to evade questions about marriage until one night his bed was found empty and he halfway to Braavos. It was said that he rose to become the First Sword directly under the Sealord, to the point where Edric Dayne's son Artygan as the latest Sword of the Morning fought in a duel with the Stalwart Falcon. The young lord was only a boy of four and ten, but he was said to have been struck dumb in awe of the Stalwart's skill. He would return to his mother Arya and fill her head with endless ravings about his duel - such facts would never fail to plaster a smile on her niece's face.

 

 

Lysa dies in 315 A.C., and when she does meet Ned among the gods Old and New and Everything In-Between, she makes sure to babble on about all that he had missed. Winter sits at their feet, the fire is warm, and she feels no less loved in the afterlife as she felt loved in life.

Not too shabby for the unwanted second daughter of the Riverlands.

**Author's Note:**

> Family Tree for the Starks (and by proxy, the Reeds and Targaryens) are as below:
> 
>  
> 
> Brandon Stark (deceased)  
> Eddard Stark  
> Lysa Tully Stark  
> Jocelyn  
> Torrhen  
> Rickon  
> Lyanna Stark Targaryen (deceased)  
> Rhaegar Targaryen (deceased)  
> Jon Stark/Jaehaerys Targaryen  
> Benjen Stark  
> Myra Flint Stark  
> Arya  
> Rickard  
> Themor  
> Serena  
> Raya  
> Jonos  
> Elric  
> Artos  
> Myrille
> 
> Howland Reed  
> Jyanna Greengood Reed  
> Meera  
> Torrhen Stark  
> Alysanne Stark  
> Artos Stark  
> Holt Reed  
> Johen Reed  
> Jojen (deceased)
> 
> Aerys II Targaryen (deceased)  
> Rhaella Targaryen  
> Rhaegar (deceased)  
> Elia Martell Targaryen (deceased)  
> Rhaenys Targaryen Tyrell  
> Willas Tyrell  
> Elia  
> Margaery  
> Aegon  
> Aegon IV (deceased)  
> Lyanna Stark Targaryen (deceased)  
> Jon Stark/Jaehaerys Targaryen  
> Viserys Targaryen Martell (deceased)  
> Arianne Martell  
> Maron Martell  
> Daenerys  
> Jaehaerys  
> Lysanna  
> Eddor  
> Aemon  
> Daeron  
> Shaera  
> Rhaella  
> Viserion  
> (With second husband Ser Bonifer Hasty) Haedron Hasty  
> A Lysene woman, Symone
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did writing it!


End file.
